


(glaciers melting in the dead of night)

by OtherCat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Actual Threats, Body Horror, Dom/sub, Dubious Morality, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Manipulation, Mind Games, Multi, Threats of being eaten, Threats of torture, implied threats
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-05-01 18:12:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14526300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: In which Game Over! Dirk doesn’t get to peacefully disintegrate. No, that would be too easy. Instead he passes between universes, and ends up in the hands of HIC.





	1. Chapter 1

Space is “rough” here in a way that she could get some scienterrorist to explain to her real slow if she wanted it. The interaction between it and psionics gets called “novel” by non-psionic scienterrorists but her personal helmsman refers to is at “a fucking goddamn bitch to fly in.” Again, Meenah could get the explanation for what’s going on, but she does not want it, because it’s as close to real ass magic as anything else in the universe. 

So here’s what the “rough space” is: bright veils of color kicked up in an interaction between it and active psionics. Bright shining white cracks like pottery glued together with an adhesive with silver dust mixed in. Psychics got odd echoes and visions. Sometimes you’d find actual physical shit. Something like a busted up wreck of a _sailing_ ship, maybe, or a completely intact house or a huge coddamned dead animal of some kind.

Every so often she takes a school of her courtiers and advisers and scienterrorists out to see the rough patches. (The scienterrorists have their own little expeditions out to the rough spaces, but they’re usually pleased to come on what are pretty much sightseeing tours, in hopes of getting Imperial Grants or sponsorship.) They marvel and some of them even listen to the scienterrorists who have the raw deal of dumbing shit down for guppies who don’t really have the appre-sea-ation for the wonders of deep space and are just there to tell everyone they were invited and went. (The scienterrorists reely earn their grants and sponsorships.) 

A few days into the most recent trip into rough space, Tuna goes, “Holy shit. There’s someone out there.” 

“A body?” Meenah asks. A troll (or more likely alien) corpse might interest the Junior Legal Counselator and her flock of raptorial protégés. (The sprats were adorable little goblins who had wanted to explore the gutted cruiser the ship had passed a few days back, never mind they only had minimal training in null gee so far.)

“No, it’s alive, but probably not for long.” 

“Whale, reel it in,” Meenah says, curiosity piqued. 

The alien wasn’t nearly as frozen as it should have been, floating out in space. (Well, flailing uselessly due to a lack of air til they passed out according to Tuna’s cameras) Unconscious, but a little guess work got its blood pusher pumping and aeration sponges working. The bioterminators were eager to examine the alien, who is eerily trolloid in appearance, except for the parts where it ain’t. Meenah okays limited examinations, mostly so the medicullers know what they’re dealing with. 

The alien wakes up and…nothing. Well, it wakes up and according the medicullers there was something that might have been recognition in its eyes. They are pretty sure that somehow this unknown alien knows what trolls are, that for a moment it panicked, but then went completely submissive, lying there and letting itself be examined, but not making any effort to communicate.

It also won’t eat, and won’t drink. Within a few days of it not eating they decide to install worm tubes for hydration and food and waste removal. It barely reacts to stimulus, won’t attempt to communicate, just lets itself be examined and tested. It may or may not be dying because of some nutrient that they’re putting or not putting in its food. 

Meenah is curious, and low-key concerned. She wants to get a look at it herself, maybe sea if there’s something she can do to wake it up, or keep it from dying. Meenah goes to the room in the infirmary where they’re keeping the alien and gets the surprise of her life when the alien takes one look at her, seems to _recognize_ her in a very personal way, and launches itself off the recuperapallet and at her throat.

Meenah lands flat on her bass with the alien on top of her. The alien is sparking vivid fuchsia lightning that hurts like fuck. (Briefly she sees herself from a weird third person angle.) She knees the alien hard and throws him off her, and the lightning flickers out. The alien rolls and comes at her again, screaming all kinds of accusations in Alternian--which is a fucking surprise all by itself; as far as she knew it hadn’t shown any sign of knowing or speaking Alternian. Then the room is full of Threshies who don’t give the alien a chance to continue its attack. They have it down in seconds and one of them gets ready to put it down.

“No,” Meenah says. “Restrain it, send it to my suite.”

“Your Imperious Condescension, it just tried to kill you,” the Threshy protests. 

“Don’t care,” Meenah says. She gives the Threshy a look that would have made most trolls flinch and cower a bit, but this little basshole is under the direct command of her Chief Threshy, so he just respectfully lowers his eyes and doesn’t move an inch. She can almost hear Nubs say; _sometimes loyalty is letting them know their orders are fucking stupid._ “Restrain it, make it safe however the fuck you want, send it to my suite.”

Of course, Your Imperious Condescension,” the Threshy says. Then he bows and starts issuing orders while some medicullers decide to start fussing, wanting to examine her and make sure she’s all right.

Next on the list of sprats who should mind their own coddamned business is the Junior Legal Counselator. 

She wants to question the alien. “The fucking good is that going to do?” Meenah asks. 

The look on the sprat's face is pretty fucking funny. “Ah. Get to the bottom of whatever conspiracy the alien is a part of, Empress?”

“Okay so, a completely unknown alien,” Meenah says patiently. “From a completely unknown world. Who randomly appears through a fucking temporal-space anomaly that mostly throws out pretty lights and weird as fuck shit.” 

“From the security feeds, he seemed to have a personal grief against you. It seems like you’d want to get to the bottom of that, Empress,” the Counselator says. 

“Tuna, why are you showin’ people security feeds?” 

“The Counselator requested them as part of the ongoing investigation concerning the extremely dangerous alien who tried to krill you,” Tuna points out reasonably. 

“There anchovy going to be an investigation, not by you, anyway, sprat,” Meenah says to the Counselator. 

“I can find out my own self what the shell’s going on.” 

“Yes, Empress,” the Counselator says, not sounding at all pleased about it. 

“Anywave it’s a one of a kind item, and I’m itching to find out water its deal is. If there’s anyfin I need from you, I’ll tell you.” 

The Counselator bows and absconds. Several more advisers express concern about the alien, but Meenah deals with them as they present their concerns. Some with more courtesy, and some with much less. Meenah’s “suite” takes up most of a deck. There is plenty of room for private entertainment, guest rooms, kitchens, servant quarters, an art gallery, a performance theater and a movie theater. There’s also a library, her office, and salt water pool. 

Her staff is quiet, efficient and very well paid. The instant she’s through the hatch, someone’s helping her out of her sandals, removing the more uncomfortable jewelry, taking her hair down, escorting her to the parlor. There’s always a little something a little something to take the edge off before dinner, and the head of her service staff is there to tell her about whatever projects have been done or need doing. She drinks wine and has a small snack of raw slices of fish set on tiny cakes of sticky grain. 

“We weren’t…quite sure whether you wanted the alien in a ‘guest room’…or a guest room, Empress,” the head of her service staff says. “So we erred on the side of caution and put him in a ‘guest room.’” 

“You can say holding cell,” Meenah says, amused. “Even if they are about as nice as the actual guest rooms.” The holding cells were for enemies she wanted to keep a close eye on, hostages, the occasional pitch fling. It’s been decades since she’d had anyone in one though, well before this cobalt cutie’s time. He’s a little young for the job, but he has the management skills, and his moirail oversaw the aquariums and gardens. 

She finds out which holding cell, and after her snack she decides to check on the alien. It’s naked and drugged to the gills, restrained to a soft sack chair. The chair’s big and heavy, and moves a bit under its own power, trying to make the person sitting (or restrained) more comfortable. There’s nothing else in the room by way of furniture. 

The restraints are over its chest, arms, wrists, thighs and ankles, thick fuchsia straps holding it in place in the sack chair. There’s an inhibitor collar around its neck. There’s some swollen redness around the mouths of the worm tubes, a sure sign that they were jostled and they bit down or someone tried to remove them. It also looks pretty beaten up, either because it fought or because the Threshies wanted to get their frustration out. 

It’s staring at her with terrified loathing. “Is that inhibitor collar going to work against whatever the hell that lightning was?” Meenah asks. 

“It works,” Tuna says. “Once they put it on, he stopped sparking.”

“Good,” Meenah says, and steps closer to the alien. “So, you speak Alternian?” The alien doesn’t say anything, deliberately looking away. 

“You weren’t giving me the silent treatment a little while ago,” Meenah says. She settles down by the sack chair, grasps the alien’s chin and turns his face toward her. “Hey, you sure you want to ignore me?” she asks. 

“I have nothing to say to you, Batterwitch,” the alien says. “Except go to hell.” 

“Batterwitch, huh?” Meenah asks. “How’d word of my baking reach your undoubtedly backwater little dirtball?”

There’s a moment of surprise (Meenah thinks it’s probably surprise) and confusion (it looks pretty much like confusion) on the alien’s face. “Because you drowned it and wiped out my entire species,” the alien says. “You enslaved and murdered millions. You fucked up the Game and took Jane over somehow and everyone’s fucking dead. You killed everyone just so you could take the Game away from us and fuck everyone over.” The alien, worked up over this speech, strains against the restraints. 

Meenah’s confused, but not about to be driven out of the room by angry, drugged accusations. She sits and watches the alien wear itself down into an exhausted stupor. “Tuna, we ever encounter aliens like this?” 

“Nothing like them is in the database,” Tuna says.

“How’d I go about destroying a species we ain’t encountered yet?”

“Anything I can think of involves B-Grade science fiction movie plots, Empress,” Tuna says. 

“What’d I do to end up in a B-Grade movie, Tuna?” Meenah asks. “I’m A-List all the way, bayb.” 

“I’m…curious about this mention of a ‘game’ of some kind,” Tuna says. “And your actions within it.”

“Yeah, that shit sounds weird as fuck.” She looks at the sleeping alien, curious and interested. She reaches out and pets the alien’s pale hair. “Be interesting to find out.” She stands up and leaves the room, locking the hatch behind her. She has dinner, watches movies and eventually goes to bed. 

The next evening is full of social gatherings and scientific presentations. There is a lot of political wheeling and dealing going on, and Meenah does her best to stay on top of it. There’s also a formal dinner with all the courses and a coddamn huge sculptural pastry that had been a bitch to assemble: a child reclining against the side of a deercat lusus. (A small surprise for one of the scienterrorists she was sponsoring, their lusus had been a deercat. Meenah wanted to make it reel clear the work they were doing in biomedical research was noted and appreciated.) There are some questions about the alien that are immediately withdrawn when she gives the questioner a certain look. 

When she gets back to her suite, she checks on the alien, who has been making some effort to free himself. She settles down beside the sack chair with some of the pastry and a bottle of dessert wine. (Light, very sweet and while she could drink bottles of the stuff, it’d probably knock a rustblood flat.) “The theory is that I am in the movie where they go back in time to krill the evil overlord before he became an evil overlord,” she says. “Did they just chuck you through the anomaly and hope?” Something changes about the alien’s expression. Some of it seems like confusion, more of it wariness and complete distrust. “So, tell me about this world I drowned,” Meenah says, and drinks from the bottle.

The alien doesn’t answer. (She hadn’t expected it to.) She offers it some pastry, a dense sweetbread dotted with candied fruits and nuts. It turns its face away. “C’mon now, getting food from a tube with teeth can’t be fun,” she says. 

Still nothing. 

Meenah reaches over, and ruffles the alien’s hair. “The more I think of it, the texture feels more like hair product of some kind, than what your actual hair might feel like,” she says. “Also, you stink like dried sweat and infirmary. Why don’t we take care of that?” 

The alien looks uneasy, and also confused, though it’s trying hard to keep an indifferent expression on its face. She sends for rags, towels, soap, a comb, shampoo and conditioner. The first cleaning agents don’t pass the skin test, so she sends for something milder. After a few more tries, she gets something she can actually use on the alien. 

Meenah adjusts the restraints, tying each wrist to the chest harness, and connecting the restraints on his thighs and ankles together. The alien attempts to struggle, but can’t break free. From there she adjusts the worm tubes so they won’t get in the way or flop around. Then she marches it into the ablution block, puts him in the trap, securing it to a bar before turning on the water.

She strips out of her clothes and coils her hair in a long knot before getting in after it. The alien doesn’t know what to do about that, looking everywhere but at her. She rinses it with the detachable showerhead, and then bathes it and washes its hair. When it struggles or tries to move away, she just moves it back into position, saying things like “it’s just a shower, you’re fine,” or “don’t be a wiggler.” 

It’s all lean muscle and bones she can see under the skin. She has an immediate sense that the alien has been on short rations for most, if not all of its life. There are scars, burns on the hands and arms, long knife or maybe sword cuts. There are scars that might be from claws across his back and his legs. (She wants to find out where they’re from.) Rubbing at the crude tattoo on one shoulder gets a furious reaction, all glares and fury. It’s gone back to the silent treatment. 

This kind of thing was always hilarious to her. Playing pale (or being pale) and pitch at the same time. Her particular pitch enemies never expected to be cherished like they were her moirails, like they were possessions she already owned. It confused the hell out of them, pissed them off and made the later pailing more fun for her. (She learned the hard way to appreciate what’s hers. You lose what could have been your kismesis proper, what could have been a quadrant because you krilled them, and if you have half a functioning pan, you don’t forget the coddamn lesson.) 

The alien was pitch, maybe, and claimed that she’d destroyed its world (which she hadn’t done) and that made her want to fuck with it, take it apart, tame it, figure it out. It’s trembling under her hands, all anger, fear and confusion, and that’s something she likes too. She guides it out of the ablution trap and dries it off, then takes it back to the sack chair. “I’d take off the restraints, but I don’t quite trust you yet,” she says as she straps him back in place. Once that’s done, she leans against the sack chair, and runs her fingers through the alien’s hair. It’s much softer now, and very fine. “You have a good day, bayb,” Meenah says, and absconds.


	2. Chapter 2

She leaves it alone for a while. The worms won’t need to be replaced for days, and she has work to do. The Flagship returns to the main fleet, her courtiers and guests all suitably impressed by the wonders of the Void. She reads reports and signs orders and attends a minor Senate meeting. She very discreetly orders a survey of unexplored star systems the alien could have come from.

She watches the alien via the security feeds in the holding cell. It mostly lies there in the sack chair. Occasionally it tries to get loose, struggling with the restraints. It has nightmares that it sometimes wakes up screaming from. She leaves it alone in the room to see how it reacts. It knows, or suspects immediately. “You won’t break me like this,” it says. “I grew up alone in the middle of the ocean, nothing around but seagulls and fish for miles.”

There’s a certain amount of bravado in its tone, and a great deal of restlessness. The alien was used to being active, to moving around. It did not like being confined. It did not actually like silence, and there was a lot of silence in the holding cell, which was insulated enough that the air felt a little denser when you were in the room. She adds some sound, mostly atmospheric, and starting out very low, then increasing it bit by bit, and then lowering it unexpectedly. Wind and waves, the occasional storm, seabirds calling, in just such a way that the alien couldn’t predict, and couldn’t know whether it was something he was hearing, or if it was imagining it. It knows, though, or suspects, even as it’s disturbed by the sounds. “Is that the best you can do, Batterwitch?” it asks. 

When the time comes to replace the worms, she does it herself. The hydration worm lets go when presented with a bait stick to bite onto, but the nutrient worm needs to be injected with a hormone that will make it retract, sealing the holes it made as it goes. The colostomy worm is a little easier to remove, but a little more effort is required. It takes some tugging to free it, even with the retraction hormone; it’s in its ideal environment and doesn’t want to leave. The alien is in extreme discomfort while she removes the worms, twisting and looking away, his face pale and sickly looking from a combination of pain and horror.

She drops each of the worms in their tank. The hydration and nutrient worms would be sent back down to medical to be cleaned, allowed to gorge, expel waste and be reused. The colostomy worm would be allowed to expel waste, cleaned and reused as well. “You think you might want to cooperate about eating and hydrating, or do I need to give you a new set of worms?” Meenah asks.

The alien doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at her.

“Sugargrub, don’t think I won’t install ports if I have to. Do you really want me to do that?” Meenah asks. “Full life support and you won’t be able to move a finger. You will be full of worms just like this, only bigger permanent installations.”

The alien’s mouth twitches. Disgust, and maybe also a little fear. He still doesn’t say anything.

“My weird ass little anomaly, on permanent life support,” Meenah says. “The most half-assed assassination attempt I ever experienced, and there have been some fucking stupid ones.”

She takes the new hydration worm out of its casing of sterile gossamer. It’s about 45 centimeters long, a slick dappled gray and swollen with water, and sets it on the alien’s right arm so it can find a place to sink its needle teeth. The hydration worms didn’t always want to bite in the place a previous worm had bit. This one finds a place further down from where the previous worm bit, wraps itself around the alien’s arm, and bites down. The alien flinches and grunts in pain as the worm bites. Meenah secures it in place with a cloth cradle.

“Yeah, you’re a little more delicate than the average troll. Thinner, more sensitive skin,” Meenah says. “C’mon sugar grub, talk to me.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” the alien says weakly.

“Except go to hell, I know,” Meenah says. “Gill can’t help being curious about angry raybels throwing themselves through time space anomalies like it weren’t a thing.” She takes a syringe, and sticks it into a vein, pressing the plunger. “I’m going to be nice, and give you something that will help the discomfort.”

She waits for the drug to take effect. The initial experiments had been to find drugs that would be safe to use on the alien. She had received a few reports it had actually died, only to receive a panicked message a few minutes later saying that the alien was alive again. (It seemed to be both very durable and a powerful psychic. It had very actively tried to kill itself, only to start breathing again, completely healed of its injuries. The biomed people had been excited and inclined to experiment, something Meenah had vetoed.)

It turned out that a wide range of drugs could be used, but needed to be at much lower doses than what you’d give to a troll. The alien calms down into a sleepy haze, body loose and relaxed. She waits a little longer before removing the nutrient worm from the gossamer casing. The alien stares at the nutrient worm with a horrified fascination.

“Do you want this again, or do you want to eat?” Meenah asks. It was perfectly normal medical equipment, but it clearly disturbed the alien.

The alien looks away and swallows, looking sick. “Doesn’t matter either way,” the alien says. “Just…get it over with.”

Meenah lowers the worm to the alien’s abdomen. It crawls to the entry made by the previous worm, and burrows in. It would connect itself to the stomach, creating a sterile seal around itself that became a waxy cover when it was removed. It also prevented any internal bleeding by secreting chemicals that sealed any veins it cut on the way in.

The alien makes a pained noise, looking sick. Meenah pats the alien’s leg. “You know you don’t have to go through this if you don’t want.”

“Just get to the part where there’s torture, instead of this weaksauce bullshit.”

“You ain’t being tortured yet,” Meenah says. “This is me just trying to keep you alive.” She secures the nutrient worm in a sling, and then gets out the colostomy worm, setting it near the opening of the alien’s waste vent; even drugged, the alien twists and gasps in distress. There’s an additional thing she has to do, because instead of having one vent for waste, this alien uses two. It was fit with a plastic tube and a large plastic bag, which she replaces. (She probably should have been replacing the bag more often, but she thought she could get away with it.)

“You won’t break me,” the alien says after minutes of shifting, straining distress. “There’s…there’s nothing from me that you can take, that you haven’t already.”

“Your world?” Meenah asks. “That I apparently drowned?” She secures both the worm and the bag, and washes her hands again.

“My friends,” the alien says. “I’m all that’s left. You destroyed everything. I saw their planets explode.”

“Planets now,” Meenah says. “I’m one busy beach. Since I’m gonna win this war anywave, and your assassination attempt failed, why don’t you tell me about it?” She thought of a little alliance of worlds, or a single species spreading out into the galaxy. (She wondered what her explorateers would find.) She pushes the cart full of tanks into the hallway, and calls for someone to take them back to medical.

When she turns back, the alien is a little more out of it, half asleep and lolling in the sack chair. The chair’s just about big enough for two, so Meenah settles in beside the alien, who barely stirs. She strokes his cheek, then his hair. “Hey,” she says. And then a little louder, “Hey, sprat.”

The alien’s eyes flutter open, take in how close she is and widen. It does a full body flinch away from her, but there’s nowhere for it to go. It makes a little noise of protest and fear.

“Not gonna hurt you, sprat,” Meenah says, and strokes its cheek again. “Kinda curious though, you said you grew up all alone on the ocean. How’d you meet your friends?”

It does tell her, half-asleep and reluctant about its friends. The first was Roxy, who lived in its time, thousands of miles away from his location, and then there was Jane and Jake who live hundreds of years in his past. Also apparently, Meenah’s entire species was destroyed at some point and she had nothing better to do than torment his species trying to make them into trolls and ultimately destroying them, or trying to revive her own species.

“That’s some weird as fuck science fiction shit, bayb,” Meenah tells it. “Why don’t you tell me how my species gets wiped out? Going to war against yours?”

It blinks at her, looking at her like this is basic information she should have immediately guessed at. “Vast Glub,” it says.

“And what’s that?” Meenah asks.

It makes a sound like it’s trying to glub, but of course, can’t manage it. It must be a name, because it says, “your lusus wouldn’t let you, after setting off the Vast Glub.”

“Still haven’t said what that is,” Meenah says, focusing on that instead of the idea of a lusus. Though having a lusus that apparently “glubbed” her species to death didn’t actually sound all that great. (A lot of lusii sounded absolutely shitty to have. Bad custodians, ate other trolls, too short lived, or they fucking hibernated during dark seasons.)

“If it wasn’t fed regularly, it would start to complain about it. Louder it got, more trolls died,” the alien says. “When the Game started, it died during the meteor shower.”

“This story is starting to sound as fucking complicated as something Troll Scheherazade might have come up with,” Meenah says. “So, let’s go back to something simple, you got a name?”

The alien gives her a look and says after a long pause, “yes.”

“Whale, aren’t you a sassy pants?” Meenah pats its cheek. “Give me something I can call you, sprat, or I’ll make up a name. How does ‘Starfish’ sound? Or ‘Lucky’?”

The alien makes a face at her. “Dirk,” it says, and hesitates, like it’s conferring a revelation it can’t trust her with, “Dirk Strider.”

“You got a gender, or is it all amorphous bullshit for you, and you’re fine with no hemocaste unknown gender possessive?”

“…male. Not yours,” Dirk says with a flash of anger under the sedation.

“Think I’m supposed to say, we’ll see about that, impudent buoy, maybe,” Meenah says. “But fuck that. You can tell me more about this complicated shit, and how I tried to turn your species into trolls and the game tomorrow.”

“The Scheherazade thing was literal wasn’t it,” Dirk says.

“Maybe a little, sprat,” Meenah says. “Though I think it’s a little opposite, since you don’t seem to want to be alive.”

“…if I tell enough stories you’ll let me die?” Dirk asks.

“Bayb, I’m not sure you could,” Meenah says, petting his hair. “Why don’t I tell you a story?” she asks, and tells him as much as she can remember about the Deep Water Queen who dwells at the bottom of the deepest dark, eyes like lanterns, teeth like swords, horns like the masts of old time sailing ships, ancient and unknowable. Dirk mumbles something about “Dagon” and whether or not the story was meant to help him sleep, or keep him awake for approximately forever, but he eventually slips into sleep.

Meenah turns on the ocean atmospherics to give him something to listen to, and exits the room.

She keeps it up, the next few days, visiting and tending to the alien. Getting him to talk; this isn’t actually hard. Her anomaly is full of anger and a lifetime of Brave Speeches he might have spoken in a mirror from an early age. He wants to give her a full list of her crimes and his defiance of her. She has his speeches recorded, and tries to make sense of them after.

His voice gets dry and cracked, because hydration isn’t the same as drinking water to soothe your pipes. She always has water or juice. She offers, instead of making him ask, and it’s maybe a week before he accepts. He drinks greedily from her bottle of juice, and then has such a look of dismay on his face that she can’t stop laughing about it.

Before the next time it’s due to change out the worms, she shows him what full, permanent life support would look like. It’s somewhat based on a helmsman rig, she tells the alien, showing him pictures of rebels of one stripe or another, kismeses who couldn’t get it into their heads you weren’t supposed to kill your coddamn rival. It’s a cradle or hammock tucked in a corner or suspended near a wall. They were restrained to the cradle-hammock with a combination of webbing restraints and tentacles. Head and horn restraints so they couldn’t move, muzzles, arms secured above their heads, legs spread. They had permanent ports to attach helming life support tentacles to. “Now some people like this shit as a kink,” Meenah says. “But I’m pretty sure you don’t.”

Dirk was looking kind of pale and sick, so she thought she was right on the money on that. She made sure to show him some of the further body modifications. He makes a sick little whimper and makes a valiant effort to close his legs at some of the piercings and direct nerve stimulation mods. (The way he can’t stop looking is pretty interesting though.) “Please,” he says, sounding sick as he stares at a split open and restitched bulge sheath. “I don’t, I don’t want that.”

“Well, what you have to do is eat and drink, bayb,” Meenah says. “Then I won’t have to set up a life support rig, right?”

“Yeah,” Dirk says, and swallows convulsively. “Right. Okay.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some implied threats of extreme body modification. So, you know, watch out for that.


	3. Chapter 3

Once she has his agreement to feed himself and drink, Meenah sends for new restraints and food. Dirk is not happy when he sees the new restraints, and struggles a great deal while she puts him in them. She hobbles him with ankle cuffs linked by a short chain to a bar. Then she buckles padded mitts onto his hands She laughs at the expression on his face. “They’re to keep you from clawing yourself up. Your nails are weakass and flat but the mitts will do just as well to keep you out of trouble.” She chains his wrists together, and uses a third chain to attach them the bar between his ankles.

“What next, a gimp mask?” he asks. “I said I was going to cooperate.”

“You said you were going to eat,” Meenah says. “Not that you were going to obey me.” She reaches out to stroke his cheek and he jerks away from her.

“Consume, obey, submit. Right.” Dirk says in a harsh, cracked tone. His eyes are bright with a defiant glare.

Meenah pushes him back on the sack chair and settles down beside him. “Hush,” she says, cupping her hand against his cheek. “I get it, you hate me, you’re angry as fuck.” She strokes his cheek, brushes her fingers through his hair. A shiver runs through him, and he goes still. “So I’m going to respect that by not letting you run around free and unrestrained in my coddamn quarters until I have your obedience.” 

“You’ll have a long wait,” Dirk says, his voice shaking a little.

“Then you’ll just be stuck in this room, won’t you? For a real long time,” Meenah says. She continues stroking Dirk’s hair. He shivers again, and tries to pull away, but she doesn’t let him. “You’re so warm,” she murmurs, cuddling against him. She can hear his heart speed up as he goes very stiff and tense.

“Stop,” Dirk says, sounding weak and sick. “I’d rather have my skin peeled off than you touch me.”

“That’s a classic,” Meenah says, sitting up. “You know I could do that, and you’d last a pretty long time, if I was careful,” she says in a thoughtful, offhand voice.

Dirk shudders. “Why are you fucking with me like this?” he asks.

“Just how I am, sugargrub,” Meenah says. “Pitch or flush, Imma gonna fuck with who I pike, whether or not any actual fucking goes on. I ever reel you in before?” She runs her fingers over the visible bones of his skeletal cage. “Maybe not. Not much more than muscle on your skinny little frame. Not a bit of fat and too many scars.”

“No, she–you–never did this. What mostly happened is she’d send drones after us and we’d have to fight them,” Dirk says, his voice and expression uneasy. “Kind of worried about being fattened up now,” he says, almost flippantly. “Am I going to be on the menu as some exotic entrée?”

Meenah hums, running her fingers over tensed muscle and visible bone. “Maybe if it turns out that parts that get lopped off grow back,” she says, just as flippant. “Maybe just clone the best bits.” She smiles at Dirk, all teeth. He looks away quickly and shudders all over.

She sets out a little picnic on the floor; broth with dumpling stuffed with meat and vegetables, little cakes, tea. He fumbles with the spoon in his mitted hand, and he eats slow and tentative like he thinks the food might be drugged, or have some property that would make him sick. He also watches her out of the corner of his eye, like she might pounce on him. “This isn’t going to work either,” Dirk says, poking apart one of the dumplings. “I know what this set up is. Play nice if you want to eat, if you want to be more comfortably imprisoned.”

“Oh whale, can’t fool you,” Meenah says. “You rather not be comfortable? I got evidence that ain’t so.”

“Technically, the…rigs…you showed me would be more or less comfortable,” Dirk says, like he can’t help making the argument. Like he has to argue both sides just for the sake of it. “Since they were intended for long term restraint and full life support.”

“Comfort’s in the head as much as the body,” Meenah says. “And not even having a chance at fighting, that wouldn’t make you comfortable, would it?”

“Submitting won’t make me comfortable either,” Dirk says. He scoops up the dumpling and eats it, not looking at her. “Obedience won’t make me comfortable. You can’t tame me like you’re some kind of horse-loving ingénue to my wild stallion.” He falls silent, some expression she can’t read sliding across his face. “So just take off the fake ass velvet gloves. I won’t give you what you want.”

“Bayb, you ain’t got the faintest clue of what I want,” Meenah says. “Why you want to be punfished so bad?” She asks, and knows she’s scored a hit because he looks up at her quickly, then looks deliberately away. “You’re already a broke up wreck from what I’ve seen. My little raybel jumping through time and space and falling short by about three hundred meters. What were you even going to do if you managed to get on board? My security is tight as fuck, and you are small, scrawny and stick out like a sore thumb. Even if you’re a high powered psychic, you didn’t have much of a chance.” She pauses, like she’s thinking about it. “Is that why you want to be punished, you fucked up?”

Dirk tenses all over, his mittened hands fumbling a bit at the bowl. Some of the broth slips over the rim onto the floor. “Yeah. That’s it. That’s entirely it,” Dirk says and looks up at her. The expression on his face tells her he was being more honest that he’d intended.

“Whale, you want it so marsh, I think I’ll keep with the velvet gloves,” Meenah says.

When he’s finished eating, she removes the eating utensils, and then gives him a shower. He isn’t very cooperative about it, but that’s half the fun. While she’s drying him off, she gives him some rules to follow. “I can’t feed or look after you all the time, that’s what staff is for,” she says. “So the chief of my household staff will be giving you meals. You may or may not have noticed the little square in front of the door?”

Dirk nods.

“When the door is open, you do not go into the square. He’ll leave the food for you and exit the room. When the door is closed, you can go get the food. When you’re done, put the plates or whatever back on the cart and leave the cart in the square.”

Dirk nods again, and follows her out of the ablutionblock. He has to test her, of course, stepping into the square as the door opens. Then he makes a pained noise and drops to the floor, curling into a ball. “Stings, don’t it?” Meenah asks. “It’ll go away a few minutes after the door closes.” She leaves the door open for a bit after she rolls the cart out of the room. She leans against the doorway and watches Dirk try and fail to crawl out of the square. “You’re not going to do this again, right?” she asks.

Dirk makes noises that sound like curses.

“Yeah, don’t do that again. Also, don’t try to open the door. The mitts should keep you from anything stupid, but then you went and stepped into the square after I told you not to.” She steps out of the doorway, allowing the door to close.

So, there is a great deal of buzzing around concerning security and conspiracies and all manner of things. Medbio wants to do further tests on the alien. No one has found a planet occupied by mammalian trolloid psychic aliens yet. (Meenah is pretty surftan that some of the weird ass shit the alien tells her is some kind of obfuscation tactic.) The judiciary wants to find the source of the conspiracy and want to interrogate the alien. Security wants to lock things far past water you’re willing to put up with. Various members of the naval aristocracy come up to you looking for some kind of weakness or angler and end up talking to the judiciary in small brightly lit rooms.

She visits Dirk when she gets the chance, nudging him to see what makes him react. She asks questions, and hears many variations of his “you won’t break me” speech, as well as his “you are evil and this is why” speech. He doesn’t quite surrender to being touched, to being cared for, but he stops fighting her as much. The process takes about a perigee, at the end of which she has a screen put in, and gives him access to the entertainment channels.

He knows he’s being rewarded, and holds out with not using the screen for at least five nights before curiosity and boredom gets to him. 

One day after dinner she’s curled up by him and she starts asking questions about her apparent future one woman invasion of his planet. He goes into a lot of detail about his “Bro” and his friend Roxy’s “Mom.” It’s a story full of secret conspiracies and subversive protests. They apparently died heroically in a show down, after murderizing Meenah’s chief “stooges” and putting plans in motion to ensure the survival of Dirk and Roxy. He gets uneasy when she pokes for more details concerning “Dave Strider” and “Rose Lalonde.”

“It’s alraydy happened, right?” Meenah says “Unless you trying to assassinate me is what sets me off toward your homeworld.”

Dirk looks sick at the thought. “No,” he says. “That’s possible. That’s not how it happened.”

“But I ended up there anyway, right? Or at least a version of me with sweet powers did.” She pauses for a beat, thoughtfully. “Sea how well Dave Strider and Rose Lalonde stand up as raybels against Imperial rule when there’s an actual empire.”

“Please no,” Dirk says weakly.

“Sugargrub, from my end, I got attacked first,” Meenah points out reasonably. “A beach has to snap back or no one’ll respect her.” The look of sheer horror on Dirk’s face is at once hilarious as fuck and pitiful as all hell. Meenah almost laughs, but then it looks like Dirk is about to throw up, which wouldn’t be funny at all. “Aw, sprat, no,” She says, and picks him up, hauling bass for the ablution block.

He misses the load gaper the first time, getting it mostly on the floor and himself. The second time it mostly goes in the gaper. Dirk is shaking, his skin clammy and cold when she strokes his back. “No,” he says, head pressed to the edge of the gaper. “I don’t want anything else to be my fault. Please.” He sounds like he’s off his head, all the defiance drained out of him for the moment.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Meenah says, lifting him up and setting him down in the ablution trap. She secures him to a bar and leaves him there while she cleans up the mess on the floor. When she turns, he’s kneeling at the bottom of the trap, staring at her, eyes wide and vulnerable. “You’re such a mess,” she murmurs, reaching out to stroke his hair.

She rinses him off with the sprayer, and then gives him a bath. This time around, he almost leans into her touch as she washes him. His breathing is unsteady, little not-sobs and gasps. Triumph is a slow, twisting feeling low in her gut, warm and pitch and satisfied at the sounds he’s making. He was broken up all ready and she was seeing it come out between the cracks. She washes his arms, his back, his belly and legs. She strokes her hands along his thighs, and he trembles.

“Please,” he says, sounding like a wiggler, sounding even more out of his head, broken up and despairing. “Please don’t destroy them because of me. They all died. Everything went to hell and they all died and you threw me out of range so I could watch.”

The pitch feeling sparks red, and a little pale amid the pitch. “Hush,” she murmurs, not able to keep the harmonics out of her voice. Not able to stop the purr. “I don’t know what to think about your stories; half of them don’t match up with each other, the rest sound like they ought to be from completely different stories.”

“You killed everyone else, why just throw me beyond the rings?” Dirk continues. “This can’t be what you wanted–ah!” He falls abruptly silent as Meenah pinches him hard near his odd looking bulge.

“I said hush,” Meenah says. “Now I’m just about done, you ready to stand up so I can dry you off?” The confused, dazed look he gives her makes her ache. He nods, and she supports him as he gets up. She lifts him out of the tub, and dries him off.

Afterward, she gets him back to his sack chair and curls up beside him for a while. She strokes his face and his hair. He tries to talk, but she hushes him each time. “I don’t want to hear anything from you,” she murmurs to him. “Settle down.” She turns on a music station and pets him, gentle and careful, fingers exploring his scars, his soft, unarmored skin. He sleeps eventually, and she leaves the room.

The next night, she invites her Chief Threshecutioner over for dinner, and they try to piece together what the alien has said, and what Nubs has found. “Judiciary had the idea that the appearance of the alien was some kind of long con intended to send you off on a wild honkbeast chase. So far, no evidence of that, though we’ve uprooted a few conspiracies by accident.”

“That girl’s been watching too many movies with elaborate court intrigue in ‘em,” Meenay says, rolling her eyes. “What aboat planet the alien could have come from?” Meenah asks.

“They're continuing the survey, calibrating from what they know about the alien’s biology, and guessing from there what the planet and star system might be like,” Nubs says. “but it’s a needle in a stack of plant based animal fodder, unless he’s said anything else.”

Meenah shook her head. “Naut reely,” she says. “Had a bit of a breakthrough, learned a little more about shit he says happened.”

“Breakthrough?” Nubs asks.

“Pretty shore he ain’t been lying about most of what he’s been saying to confuse things,” Meenah says. “Was all in a panic at the idea it might be his fault I ended up in his universe, or found his world.”

“Like that isn’t the most common time travel storyline. Whoops fait is accompli because of my actions oh no,” Vantas says.

“How’d I get in a b-grade move, bayb? That’s what I want to know,” Meenah agrees. “Still not sure the ‘game’ he was talking about was real, let alone my being some OP planet destroying mega boss.”

Vantas immediately looks away, and makes a noise that is definitely a suppressed laugh.

Meenah kicks his leg. “Watch it sprat.”

“Ow,” Vantas says, and almost-laughs again. “Still, it’s not _inaccurate._ ” 

“You’re getting too big for your britches, sprat,” Meenah says, and kicks him again. Then she says, “yeah, I’m fucking old, I say _people are too big for their britches_ on account of how _they are,_ and I say what I want even if it’s some archaic bullshit saying,” she says when Vantas chokes out a _do people even say that anymore?_

“Yes Empress,” Vantas says when he gets control of himself. He takes a couple of deep breaths, still not making eye contact. “Would you be willing to let me see him?” he asks. “I don’t doubt your interrogation methods–”

“Yeah you do,” Meenah says. “Coz you know I’m mostly fucking with him until I get what I want. Information taking second place to my decadent entertainment and so on.” 

Vantas denies thinking any such thing about her. He compliments her political acumen and attention to her responsibilities with the unthinkingly honest critique of someone who has not the single idea of how to flatter. It is fucking adorabubble, especially when Vantas realizes what he’s doing, but can’t stop with the gruff almost-pale analysis of her policies. 


	4. Chapter 4

About an hour later, Vantas follows Meenah into the holding cell, in his full Threshcutioner uniform, including his sickle and the heavy boots she always makes him take off on entering her quarters. Dirk looks up from where he’s sitting with an expression of unease and an odd sort of surprise at the sight of her Chief Threshy. “This is my Chief Threshcutioner, Karkat Vantas,” Meenah says. “He has some questions for you.” 

“The first is, why you are sitting on your ass when your superiors enter the room,” Vantas says. 

“I’ll get right on that, when I meet anyone superior to me,” Dirk says, tone bored but his shoulders tense.

Karkat immediately flips Dirk out of the chair and onto his belly. He squirms, trying to get up, but Karkat sets his boot firmly between Dirk’s shoulder blades, forcing him back down. “How about until I say otherwise, everyone is superior to you, and you kneel until given permission to stand up when someone enters the room?” Karkat asks.

“Change your mind about velvet gloves?” Dirk asks Meenah, his voice strained. “Or is this some kinda pale legis pitch legis?” 

“More like you’re my naughty little anomaly and he’s the trainer I’ve brought in to teach you not to make messes on the floor,” Meenah says. “He really does want you to answer his questions though.” 

“I’m going to take my boot off your back,” Karkat says. “And you are going to kneel, and we’re going to have a chat.” 

“Oh well, I’m all for a nice chat,” Dirk says, and grunts when Karkat steps a little harder before removing his foot. For a moment Dirk just lies there, before getting up into a kneeling position. 

“Good,” Karkat says. He pushes the sack chair over for Meenah to sit in, and Meenah settles in to watch the show.

Karkat turns back to Dirk and uncaptchalogues a shelltop, fiddles with it so it’ll record the interrogation. He doesn’t say anything for several minutes. “Traditional Legislacerator interrogations begin with slapping the prisoner repeatedly. I however am not a Legislacerator so that won’t happen. How this is going to work is I’m going to give you a name, and you say everything you know about that name. If you don’t know the name, don’t say anything. Nod if you understand me,” Karkat says.

Dirk nods, flicking a wary glance to Karkat, then back to Meenah. 

Karkat starts listing names, pausing at the end of each. Dirk mostly keeps silent, shifting uneasily, trying to keep an eye on where Karkat is at any one moment. Karkat paces in in a circle around Dirk, stopping every so often. When Dirk tries to turn with Karkat, he gets nudged back into position. 

“I don’t know any of these names,” Dirk says at one point. “Why are you asking me?” Karkat doesn’t pay it any mind, keeps saying names. 

After a few minutes, Karkat says a name Dirk knows. “Tell me about Jane,” Karkat orders. Dirk’s shoulders tense, and he stays silent, the way he did for the names he didn’t know. “Tell me about Jane,” Karkat repeats gently. “You know that name Dirk. You accused Her Imperious Condescension of harming this ‘Jane’ as well as others.” 

“She’s dead,” Dirk says. “They’re all dead.” 

“You said that Her Imperious Condescension ‘took’ Jane. Why don’t you explain what happened?” Karkat asks. 

Meenah watches Karkat wear Dirk down, get him to talk. Dirk talks all hesitant about Jane, and a “Crockertop Tiara” that turned out to be some kind of device that took over his friend Jane. He talks about his friend Roxy and some gill with barkbeast ears that got taken over by the other Condesce directly, because she was part barkbeast. 

“The Empress doesn’t have animal communion powers,” Karkat says. 

“Maybe she doesn’t, but the Condesce I knew, had all kinds of powers,” Dirk says. 

“Why don’t you tell me about them?” Karkat asks. Dirk obeys, and Karkat asks for more details about the powers, then goes back and gets clarification about the invasion of earth. What Dirk tells him almost makes Karkat fall out of the moment; his voice shakes a bit on the next questions, and he turns a bit to shoot Meenah a look that was both angry and full of horror. 

Meenah gives him a look back, stern and determined, nodding at Dirk. Karkat takes a breath, and keeps on going. Nubs pries in all sorts of directions, confirming and clarifying. His voice is a bit harder now, taking some of his upset out on her little anomaly. Dirk gets a little more resistant in response, like he thinks he can push Karkat into doing something stupid. Karkat doesn’t respond to the baiting attempts, just pushes on with his questions.

Eventually, Karkat goes, “I’ve reached the end of my questions, Empress,” all correct like. He steps away from Dirk. 

Dirk’s watching them both, wary and tense. He’s trying for blank, but there’s a confused little frown at the corners of his mouth.

“I alwaves like watching you work,” Meenah says. “You get what you need?” 

“Things are a little clearer,” Karkat says. “I’m kind of terrified you didn’t feel the need to mention the part where our entire species is destroyed during our earlier briefing.” 

“It won’t happen,” Meenah says. “No need to worry about something that won’t happen.” 

“Still terrified, Your Imperious Condescension,” Karkat says.

“Whale come over here by me then,” Meenah says, patting the side of the sack chair. “And I’ll explain why I ain’t too worried.” 

He doesn’t hesitate for more than a moment, some part of his brain going, _but I must secure the prisoner!_ Meenah can see it in the little glance he sends back toward Dirk. Another part of his brain is probably going _not in front of the prisoner,_ but he comes to stand by Meenah with no verbal protest. 

He tries to kneel, all formal like on one knee, but she grabs him by the arm and tugs him gentle like off balance. She brings him to lean against the sack chair and her legs. “Boots and weapon’s belt off, sprat,” she says. 

“Yes Empress,” Karkat squirms a bit as he takes off both. He blushes all cute at the ear tips, as if she’d told him to strip all the way off. He has no idea of how to handle this, even after sweeps of being her Chief Threshie. It’s because he doesn’t know how serious she is, which is fin, because half the time she doesn’t know either. He sets everything to the side and allows himself relax to against her legs. “If I may know why you aren’t concerned about the extinction of our species, Your Condescension?” 

The attempt at formality, despite his position makes Meenah smile. She shifts a bit so she can stroke his hair and face, rub around his nubby little hornbeds. “Whale, maybe because I don’t have a species destroying daymare of a lusus?” Meenah says. “And somehow that other Condesce does.”

Karkat looks up at her, all quick like surprise. “A lusus?” He frowns over at Dirk, who is watching this with increasing discomfort.

“Not like anything I’ve heard of,” Meenah says. “Way off standard, something unique that never appeared in our Alternia’s ocean. So it ain’t here, so it can’t create a mass extinction, now can it?” She says it in the sweetest tone she can manage, as if she’s reassuring a lusus. 

“Well, what if whatever it is comes through the way your alien did,” Karkat says, because he can’t not argue. 

“Whale I guess we try to krill it before it krills us,” Meenah says. She keeps petting him, and he slowly curls around her, face tucked against her legs, letting her pacify him. After a while he starts to purr, despite the audience. “Damn, you’re so cute like this,” Meenah says. “I want to play with you a bit.”

She can feel Karkat shiver a bit. “Here?” Then he says, “of course here,” in a way that sounds a bit like grumbling, but wasn’t really. 

“Not here,” Dirk says. “How about anywhere but here.” He was flushed bright red, and trying not to look in their direction. It wasn’t disgust or offense, though she thought that was what he was going for. It was closer to some kind of half-horrified fascination.

“I can see how you might have gotten confused,” Karkat says. “But you aren’t the one in control here.” 

“Yeah, I can see that,” Dirk says. “I am pretty fucking aware. Is he training me by example or something?” 

Karkat starts to get up, but Meenah pushes him to the side. “Strip off,” she tells him. Once Karkat’s wiggling out of his uniform, she gets up from the chair and uncaptchalogues a few items. Ear plugs, a gag, a blindfold. 

“Do you just carry shit like that around?” He asks, taking in the gag in particular. It’s a ring gag, meant to keep the mouth open. He tries edging away, but Meenah wrestles him onto his back and after a brief struggle, gets the gag on him, followed by the earplugs and the blindfold. She adjusts his restraints so his wrists are chained behind his back, and leaves him there. 

When she turns back to Karkat, he’s naked, on his knees with his head bowed and his hands behind his back. “See? It’s almost not like exhibitionism,” she says.

Karkat gives her a little peek upward. “Yes Meenah,” he says. “Absolutely not exhibitionism.” He gives another peek in the direction of Dirk. “Uh?” Obviously wondering if or how Dirk is going to be included. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Meenah says. She nudges Karkat over to the sack chair, and restrains him the ways she likes. Wrists crossed over his head, legs spread for her. She can almost hear his heart beating a little faster. She runs her hands over him, and he shivers at the difference in their body temperature. She teases him, pressing her palm over his bulge sheath, sliding her knuckles down the curve to his nook.

His hips tilt up and he moans for her, head tilted back. “Meenah,” he says. “Meenah, please.”

“You like saying my hatch name a lot,” Meenah murmurs in pretend affront. “I should make it so you can’t say a damn word.” 

“You told it to me,” he says, all gentle and sweet, sending a thrill right through. She bends over him, to nuzzle at his throat. 

“I was drunk,” she says. She scrapes her teeth against tough skin and he shiver under her, offering more of his neck to her mouth and teeth. She can feel his trapped bulge turning and twisting in its sheath. “You’re a stupid little romantic sprat.” 

“Yeah,” he says, all breathless. “I’m an idiot. You’re just here for the massive bulge and tactical genius, not the tender flushed feelings. You still have your clothes on.” 

“Don’t flatter yourshell,” Meenah says. “It’s definite the tactical something or other.” She sits back, let’s Karkat’s bulge come out of its sheath. It curves and turns all forlorn while she slips out of her clothes, and slides in firm and insistent when she finally straddles Karkat’s hips. She moans, shivering all over at the feeling as it twists in her nook. 

“Oh god,” Karkat says, half a moan.

“You say how tight I am, I’mma make you regret it,” Meenah growls. 

“Not convincing me it’s not about my bulge,” Karkat says, almost laughing.

She nips him. “I keep telling you, other way round you awful little sprat.” She clenches a bit, or tries to. Karkat’s response is incoherent, and his bulge twists against the walls of her nook, slow and warm, intense. “Yeah. You’re doing so good bay,” she murmurs, nuzzling against Karkat’s neck. 

Karkat comes first, barely able to retain, trickles of slurry slipping past clenched muscles. He swears, and almost pulls out, wanting to spill, but Meenah doesn’t let him. “You can do it,” she says, pressing closer so he can’t get the leverage. He almost thrashes inside her, giving a helpless little groan. “Hold it for me, bay.”

“I can’t,” Karkat says breathless. “I spilled, I need a pail.” 

“It wasn’t hardly anything,” Meenah tells him. “I know you can hold it.” Her tone is firm, if a little breathless, and oh, Karkat looks up at her all determined. It’s so damned sweet. She kisses him, tells him how good he looks, all wrecked beneath her. “And where did you think you’re going, all tied up for my pleasure?” 

“Kind of hoping you’d untie me,” Karkat says. “As opposed to letting me get my hideous red slurry all over the place.” 

“Before I even get to come? Shame,” Meenah tells him, squeezes around him to make him gasp and whimper. 

When she comes it’s a slow sweet thing, building then fading out then building again. She lets Karkat pull out, and manages to retain without spilling too much. Knowing how desperate Karkat is, she unties him and lets him go first. The speed with which he absconds for the ablution block makes her laugh. He shouts rude things back at her, then makes a helpless little moan as he spills that makes something inside her throb with sympathy. She follows after him and takes her turn at relieving herself. 

She exits the ablution block with Karkat at her shoulder, and goes over to Dirk. The alien is lying on his side, trembling. She goes over to the alien, and sits down beside him. She touches his arm and he jerks, away from her, making a panicked noise. She takes him by the arm and pulls him closer, his back to her chest. He struggles at first, tries to hit her with his head, but she doesn’t let go, and he eventually gives up. “What do you think?” 

“Well, he looks terrified,” Karkat says, coming closer. “Lots of scars, not very tame. Eventually responds to interrogation techniques.” He pauses for a moment. “Kind of looked at me like he recognized me, or as if I were familiar…do you think there’s an alternate of me in that ‘Game’ of his?” 

“From what he’s said, there was an earlier game with trolls in it, that created his universe at a previous remove,” Meenah says. “So probubbly.” She strokes Dirk’s chest, feels the way he tenses, trying not to tremble. “He’s still not up to a healthy weight, whale, what would probably be a healthy weight.” 

“You really want me to train him?” Karkat asks. He kneels beside her, comfortably close. “I mean aside from my actual job of being your Chief Threshecutioner, and the part where he’s a dangerous psychic alien that tried to kill you.”

“I pike him,” Meenah says, knowing that the answer was guaranteed to annoy Nubs. “And you know dangerous ain’t never been a deterrent for me. Anyway, brook at him, he’s like some kind of dark season nymph with bits of sunlight for eyes.” 

“I thought I was the romantic,” Karkat says, but he does glance at Dirk, his blindfolded face, the lean lines of the alien’s body. He falters a little at the bulge. “Was it like that before?” 

“That happens sometimes,” Meenah says. “Gets all stiff like that. All it seems able to do though.” She pauses a bit, and asks wickedly, “want to touch it?”

Karkat blushes. “No!” He tears his eyes away from the bulge. “Have you?” 

“Just to clean it,” Meena says. “If you don’t want to touch his bulge, touch his thighs.” 

Karkat obeys, scooting closer to smooth his hands over Dirk’s skin. Dirk bucks, making another panicked noise, and tries to kick. Karkat just holds his legs down “Hey, I’m not hurting you,” he says all gentle. “Wait, you can’t hear me right now.”

“Lil bit of sensory deprivation,” Meenah says. “Keep doing that,” she tells Karkat. Karkat strokes and kneads at Dirk’s leg muscles, massaging them almost, while Meenah slides her hands over Dirk’s chest and belly. Dirk keeps making angry, panicked noises, but they get quieter. His struggles slow down, get a little confused, trying to get closer instead of away. Tears start slipping under his blindfold, his face flushed. His bulge is still stiff, his hips making these little upward rolls.

She reaches up, and tugs the earplugs out of Dirk’s ears. Karkat helps her take off the gag and adjust Dirk’s restraints so that his mittened hands were once again in front. Dirk doesn’t make eye contact, and doesn’t speak. He’s shaken and dazed, and lets the both of them tug him to his feet. Meenah has Karkat clean up the chair while she wipes Dirks face with a damp cloth. 

She gets dressed and sends for food while Karkat settles Dirk into the chair. She can hear Karkat murmuring at Dirk. She can tell his questions are getting something like answers back, because his voice is staying all soft and reassuring and not rising in her direction. 

She heads back to the chair, settles down beside it. “This place could use a little more furniture,” she says. “Anything you want to watch, bay?” she asks Karkat. 

Karkat names a movie, a recent comedic tragedy. 

“Whale, I guess so,” Meenah says, pretending to think about it. “Get dressed and go upload the interrogation. Write reports and shit, then get back here.”

“Yes, Empress,” he says and goes about his business. 


	5. Chapter 5

Dirk’s quiet, still a little overwhelmed by the game she played with him. He’s openly frightened of her now, where before he’d been full of a combination of numb apathy and defiance. He’s a little more panicky as well, flinching and trembling when she touches him.

It doesn’t stop her from snuggling up against his warmth, listening to the frantic beat of his heart. She talks to him, little random things about how he’d looked, how frightened he must have been, not knowing what she’d do. “Next time, we’ll do a little bit more,” she murmurs. “Maybe even let you spill.”

Dirk shudders all over when she says that. “…won’t stop fighting you,” he says, desperate and small. “Rape won’t break me.” This was said a little more forcefully, trying to convince himself as much as her.

Meenah strokes Dirk’s cheek and nuzzles a kiss against his neck. “Keep fighting, I’ll just wear you smooth like seaglass,” she murmurs.

“Poetic way of saying you’re a sadistic, sociopathic bitch,” Dirk says, low and heated. He manages a glare. “People are just things to you, aren’t they? Things to grind down and destroy while you laugh.”   

“Grind down, polish up,” Meenah says with a soft huff of laughter. “Your temper _is_ coming back.” She strokes his cheek again, and then lightly brushes her fingers against his lips. His mouth presses into a line and he tries to turn his face away. She catches him by the chin and turns his face toward her. He glares up at her. “Good,” she says. “Vantas will be supervising your trips to my gym, and working with you,” she says.

The glare wavers. “Working with me,” he echoes.

“Got to build you up a little, you’re too damn skinny,” she says. “Don’t cause him any trouble, you’ll get on fine.”

“Right,” Dirk says. “Don’t want to cause any _trouble,_ to someone who was _molesting me_ and then had the nerve to ask if I was _okay_ afterward.”

“Vantas’ vacillates like some kind of archaic avian shaped wind direction determinator,” Meenah says. “On top of being all pale for everyone too. Nice to know I’m not the only one being all deviant.”

“Of course ‘pale’ is deviant to you,” Dirk mutters.

“Mixed with pitch boy? Shell yeah,” Meenah says. “I dig the pitch aftercare porn where they’re all bandaging each other up and shit talking all sour and cute at each other. Get their quadrants coming in to collect ‘em and fuss over them and there’s a nice little dinner party and one kismesis has a pile with their moirail and the other gets all sweet and flushed with their matesprit after. Shit like that. Or there’s one where the one kismesis ends up in the hospital and is all high and doesn’t remember how he got in the hospital and is like ‘you’re my kismesis? Did you put me in the hospital?’ And the other kismesis is like, ‘Oh my fuck no. I am not taking credit for you and your magnetic attraction to stupid.’”

“Adorable,” Dirk says, sounding a lot sassier. “Real life isn’t like one of your pornos, Empress.”

“Never said it was, shelly boy,” Meenah says. She pets his hair and strokes his face some, and the tension goes all out of him, though he keeps jerking away as he starts to drift.

Vantas comes back and they watch the movie with Dirk between them.

Meenah goes back to work, reads reports, and is bored as fuck. She watches Vantas work with Dirk, and doesn’t intercede. Vantas settles on some variation of Threshcutioner training and pale dom, in between his own work. Dirk does well with both. Vantas questions him a few more times, but it’s not for any suspicions, it’s to find all the weak points, then he starts pushing on them, soft like, then stronger, all the while offering comfort and advice, encouragement. Gets Dirk started on taking care of himself, gives him a routine to follow. Vantas has more furniture moved in, gives Dirk Threshecutioner uniforms piped in orange, and then struggles to make him wear them, which is funny as fuck.    

Dirk settles in, she thinks, but he’s afraid. She gives him time to stew. Vantas is formidable, but less frightening to him than she is. He’s getting used to Vantas, attached. He’s waiting for her to come back, and the waiting makes him edgy and uneasy though he doesn’t say anything, and Meenah is pretty he wants to. She’s got a bet going with Tuna about when he’s gonna break, and loses by two days.

“So, guess she got bored with me,” Dirk says. “And here I thought she was all hot to trot.”

“She’s the Empress, she has other things to fuss about besides inept assassins,” Vantas says.

“Or extremely one of a kind exotic pets?” Dirk asks.

“You continue to be one of a kind,” Vantas says.

“She’s looking?” Dirk asks with a twinge of anxiety.

“Again, she has other things to worry about. Political things you have nothing to do with but by your presence accidentally flushed out a few problems. Thanks for that, sincerely,” Vantas says drily. “From the Threshecutioners and the Imperial Legislacerators.”

“Well I’m not saying ‘I’m honored to have served the Empire in this way,’” Dirk says. “Unless I can trade it for no girl dicks near any part of my anatomy.”

“The hell?” Karkat asked, confused. “I thought you had some deep seated grudge against the Empress, but that’s why you don’t want her in the pitch quadrant?”

“Well, humans lack the ability to be pitch, and I lack the ability to be done by people of the womanly persuasion,” Dirk says. “I know there’s that entire ‘ha ha what is consent’ going on, but I am not a heterosexual.”   

“That can’t be a thing that’s real,” Karkat says with a frown. “I mean yeah there are preferences for male or female genders but that’s like preferring big bulges or curved horns.”

Dirk hunches his shoulders, and almost looks betrayed before it’s covered by a blank expression. “Hard to believe right, the last man on Earth is too gay for you.” He doesn’t say it in Alternian, it was understood anyway, a thing that had not stopped being strange to Meenah.

Karkat doesn’t hear the tone or understand the comment; he’s too busy being insulted on Meenah’s behalf. “He is such a little asskisser,” Tuna complains.

“Ass _kicker_ ,” Meenah says. “Don’t be nasty about my nubs, basshole.” 

Off shift, she lets herself into Dirk’s room. Dirk’s in tight shorts and a short sleeved shirt with a band name he most likely didn’t know. Dirk gets up from his lounging platform and immediately takes a knee. “Look at you being all correct,” Meenah says.

“The Chief has been pretty insistent about protocol,” Dirk says.

 “He’s been working you hard?” Meenah asks, taking over the lounging platform. “I almost miss you going for my throat every chance you got.”

Dirk’s hands work and he looks up uneasily for a moment. Just a little hint of that defiance. “Don’t mock me, Empress,” he says. “The Chief hasn’t _tamed_ me; I’m just…considering options.”  

“I watched every so often,” Meenah says. “My nubs is sweet as sugar, ain’t he? And you call him Chief now with respect and he has you all opening up like a flower to his attention. Best damned Chief Threshie I’ve ever had, and loyal as fuck.” She pauses. “Nice ass too,” she says, and sees a little flush around Dirk’s ears.

“Now let me recall to you a few perigees ago, and what happened after he questioned you. Do you remember me playing with him, and then with you?” Meenah asks.

Dirk goes pale, looks like he wants to abscond, but he’s frozen instead. After a moment he nods faintly.  

“What did he say when you protested us having our way?” Meenah asks.

“I can see how you might have gotten confused,” Dirk whispers. “But you aren’t the one in control here.”  

“And you lay there deaf and blind while I played with my Chief Threshie, and then we both played with you. You are not in control if you ever were, and you better believe you’re gonna earn my condescension if you want anything from me. I don’t care about this heterosexual thing any more than Vantas does.”

“Homosexual,” Dirk says. “I’m a homosexual, and I don’t care if you condescend to me I’m not your subject.”

“You want to ever go about anywhere?” Meenah asks. “You ever want that suppression collar off?”

“You wouldn’t do that, I don’t believe you,” Dirk says. “I’m too dangerous to you and your Empire.”

“You talk a lot of shit buoy,” Meenah says. “But I think I got you.”

“I can imagine how this is going to go,” Dirk says. “Kinky sex slave with body guard duty and occasional assassinations. I’m the Darth Vader to your Emperor Palpatine only sexier. And I’m holding out for you actually freeing me, but I’m your mysterious weapon and there’s no way the fuck you’ll let me go.” 

“That thought’s put a bulge in your pants though,” Meenah points out, because it has. She could see his stiffening length pressed against his shorts. He tried to angle away so she couldn’t see it, but failed.

Even if he were “homosexual” his body had still responded to her touch, he had still been becoming accustomed to contact with her. He had even seemed to lean into her when she petted him, though he’d never asked outright for touches or caresses. “You say you’re not my subject, but you got nowhere. You could try some lesser royalty, maybe even to your gender preference, but then I’d have to find a way to krill your ass permanently because you ain’t mine.”

 “Flattering, I guess,” Dirk says.

“Come sit by me,” Meenah orders. Dirk hesitates, so Meenah asks, “are you in control?”

“No,” Dirk says, and does what he’s told, sitting next to her on the lounging platform.

“You gotta earn my regard, or you ain’t shit,” Meenah says. “My condescension is money. Getting it means loyalty little man, and service. Vantas’ told you about that, I know he did.”

“I figured he was a brainwashed stooge wrapped around your bulge,” Dirk says shakily. 

Meenah can almost hear Tuna being torn between cackling agreement and outrage. The thought makes her smile widely at the human, something that makes Dirk shiver. “Pretty toy, you talk like that about my Vantas and I’ll gouge out those egg yolk eyes of yours, fry ‘em up and make you eat them.” She follows up with a gentle pat of his cheek. He makes a soft, sweet noise, a sort of panicked squeak when she kisses him.

She pushes him back onto the lounging platform, pinning his hands above his head. He struggles, surprise. He pants as he stares up at her with wild eyes when she breaks the kiss. He’s still hard, so she puts a knee between his legs, spreading them. He grinds against her knee, then cries out in pain when she knees him in the crotch. “Ah, fuck,” he gasps. “Didn’t, didn’t mean to insult your boyfriend.”

“I’m not nearly as bothered by that as I am by the part where you forgot whether you were. In. Control. Or. Not,” Meenah says. She punctuates the last four words with a hard, measured slap. The rings on her fingers add cuts to his face along with bruises. He tries to be hard for the first slap, but tears  and his blood are sliding down his face and into his hair by the fourth. “Are you in control? She asks him at the end of it.

“No,” Dirk groans.

Meenah adds a hard press of her knee to Dirk’s crotch. He arches off the bed and cries out.  “Are you?” She says with a growl.

“No!”

 “Who is in control?” Meenah asks.

Dirk stares blearily up at her for a moment before managing a “you.” 

“Who else?” Meenah asks.

“Chief Vantas?” Dirk asks.

“Good boy,” Meenah says. She leans down to kiss his temple, and he tries to headbutt her. “Stubborn rude little shit,” she says, more amused than angry, and pinches him until he’s gasping with pain, trying to twist away from her. She lets him go and they just stare at each other, eye to eye, Dirk wide-eyed with fear.

 She touches him more gently now, pinning his wrists above his head with one hand while she strokes him gently under his shirt. She can feel his muscles shiver under her hand, feel him breathing. She kisses him on the mouth and he bites her lip but she barely feels it and his little teeth don’t leave a dent. She smacks him for it anyway, and keeps kissing him until he gives way, eyes closed.

Every so often she asks him if he’s in control until she has him saying, “I’m not in control,” over and over again. He doesn’t resist when she pulls him into her lap and gets him out of his clothes. He clutches at her when she picks him up, falls silent as she carries him off to the ablution block to clean him up.

Meenah makes him kiss her rings, kiss her hands, before she cleans up his face, then has him get into the ablution trap. Dirk trembles, but allows her to bathe him without fighting or needing to be restrained. After she dries him off she leads him back to his lounge platform and settles him in her lap. Trembling, he curls up against her, his head on her shoulder.

Eventually, he relaxes against her, falling asleep, and she turns on the entertainment unit.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://othercat2.tumblr.com/) or [dreamwidth!](https://othercat.dreamwidth.org/)
> 
> I also have a [discord server!](https://discord.gg/sEr8gxV)


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